148 TRA.NSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE [vOL. X 



and the Denes, to whom I should add the Tlingets, whose habitat is 

 the narrow strip of land known as Southern Alaska, which geographically 

 belongs to Canada. 



Seven stocks west of the Rockies to three east thereof, in a region 

 which, if the normal proportions were observed, should contain no less 

 than forty-five of them! 



Why this extraordinary disparity? Has it never struck any eth- 

 nologist as being significant? In my humble opinion, only one answer 

 can satisfy the unbiassed enquirer: most of the Canadian Indians are 

 but pieces of wreckage brought from the neighbouring continent, descend- 

 ants of stray representatives of the native Asiatics thrown by accidents 

 on the Pacific coast, which became the dumping ground of western 

 adventurers — by this I mean the maritime tribes of British Columbia — 

 or brought to their present homes through the northwest corner of the 

 continent or the Aleutian Islands by means of voluntary or forced 

 migrations: in these we have the Denes of the Northwest. 



In the same way, therefore, as the general sparseness of the American 

 native population excludes the possibility of autochthonousness, unless 

 we choose to believe in principles the falsity of which has been demon- 

 strated, even so the significant fact that most of the races into which 

 this population is divided have their habitat on the Pacific slope points 

 to the Asiatic continent as the supply house of the same. 



V. 



Let us now restrict the field of our enquiry and question the D4nes 

 of Canada on their origin. They generally seem to know little on this 

 point; but whenever they will vouchsafe any answer at all, it will be to 

 the effect that those east of the Rocky Mountains originally came from 

 the west or the northwest, while those of British Columbia uncon- 

 sciously stand for a migration from the north. 



Practically all have a more or less confused tradition of having 

 crossed, in the dim past, a body of water strewn with islands. The 

 very fact that they believe their country to be an island would seem to 

 confirm this. According to Sir John Franklin, the Dog-Ribs do so 

 call the earth, ^ and this fact is fully corroborated by Petitot.^ 



Sir Alexander Mackenzie tells us that the Chippewayans "have a 

 tradition among them that they originally came from another country, 



1 "Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea", Vol. II, p. 295; London 

 1823. 



* Essai sur VOrigine des Dene-Dindjil (prefixed to his polyglot dictionary), p. XXVII ; 

 Paris, 1875. 



